Gwen's Birthday Present
by Vogon Widow
Summary: He knew what it was like to have bad birthdays. And that was why he was determined not to let Gwen know what it was like too. A GwOdy oneshot. Takes place before the Yukon episode.


"Oh Cody wody~" Sierra cooed.

Cody winced as Sierra's titan grip tightened around his waist, and he heard the chair beneath them screech and groan from the stress of the two occupants. It was a wonder it hadn't given way.

Of course that would mean he would be lucky enough for that to happen.

He sighed as she nuzzled his head. It was bad enough having a stalker, but it was even worse that said stalker literally dwarfed you in comparison. It was like being stalked by Slender Man. Sometimes Cody wondered if the two were related. Heh. It would definitely explain a few things...

Regardless, he wished that Sierra would just leave him alone. Let him breath. Have some free time in the moments of peace the contestants had on the plane. Especially now of all times, seeing as to how the plane had taken a pit stop on the borders of Texas while they were en route to Yukon. Something about needing fuel. Cody couldn't really hear the intercom over the ringing in his ears brought on by Sierra's death grip.

Oh what he would do for some time alone. Or better yet, time with a certain goth...

Said goth was sitting idly a few seats ahead of him, (rather aggressively) thumbing through some generic magazine that Chris kept First Class stocked with. Cody had been around Gwen long enough at this point to know when something was bothering her or when she was angry, and it looked like something was eating her. Her usually stoic and calm demeanor had for the past few hours now been replaced by an annoyed expression. He had watched her grab magazine after magazine, flipping through page by page, and then growl in frustration and get up and walk around, only to sit back down and repeat the process.

Naturally, seeing his crush troubled by something really bothered him. Especially when he couldn't do anything about it because of a certain stalker not letting him near any of the other female contestants, aside from Noah, which he still hadn't figured out the problem with that one yet. But he gave up on trying to figure out Sierra's mannerisms a long time ago. Now his only choice was to just try and put up with her as best as he could.

Even if he could go over to Gwen and talk to her right now, there really wasn't much he could do. She'd probably just scowl at him and tell him to go away like she usually did when she was like this, but Cody atleast wanted to try. He atleast wanted to show her that someone cared enough about her to try to figure out what was bothering her. That counted for something, right?

He groaned in pain as Sierra's grip somehow got even tighter. He could literally feel the blood in his body struggling to reach their destinations. He knew that she wouldn't listen to his complaints or his begging, and crying for help wouldn't really do any good as there strangely wasn't really anyone in First Class aside from Gwen and Heather.

Even still, he struggled against her grip.

"Sierra..." He said through gritted teeth, "you're kinda crushing me..."

Sierra's wild love-struck smile simply widened at this. "Ooo I just can't help it! You're so cute!"

Her grip tightened again, and this time he swore something broke.

Heather, who was sitting over at the bar sipping on some caffeinated concoction, rolled her eyes. "Ease up, Sierra. I don't want you breaking Cody's ribs. He's already useless enough as is."

 _Oh boy..._ Cody thought, _here we go..._

"And just what is THAT supposed to mean!?" Sierra finally released her grip on Cody; aggressively throwing him aside onto the floor as she stood up and leered aggressively at Heather, who was unfazed by the display.

"What it MEANS is that the squirt can barely even lift his own weight, much less stand up for himself against a crazy whack-job.."

This really set her off. "You take that back!" She screamed, and Heather chuckled.

Heather, obviously enjoying this, opened her mouth to respond again, when Gwen's thunderous voice suddenly broke through their argument.

"SHUT UP!" She yelled angrily, jumping out of her seat and throwing her magazine to the side carelessly. "BOTH OF YOU JUST SHUT UP! GOD, CAN'T I GET SOME PEACE AND QUIET AROUND HERE!?"

Before either of them could say anything, Gwen turned and stormed off, angrily stomping out of First Class to who knows where.

All was silent in the First Class cabin for a few moments, as the tension in the air settled.

"Jeeze." Heather finally broke the silence, "talk about dramatic. Wonder what her problem is."

"Well duhhhh!" Sierra rolled her eyes, "isn't it obvious?"

By now, Cody had gotten up off the floor, and was now sitting back down, although as far as way from Sierra as he could get without her noticing, which was unfortunately cramped up against the window.

"Is what obvious?" He asked, and to his surprise she didn't immediately rush over to him and try to pull him into another iron grip. Instead she sat back down next to him and put her arm around him.

"Today is Gwen's birthday of course." She said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Heather rolled her eyes once more at this. "Oh boo hoo. Weird Goth Girl didn't get any presents. Big deal. No need to go throw a giant fit over it." Heather turned her attention back to her drink, while Cody tapped his chin, staring up at the ceiling in thought.

 _So today is Gwen's birthday? Huh. I had no idea. I guess nobody knew... Man, that must really suck. To have your brithday and be stuck on this show. And alone at that. I know how that feels..._

Indeed, Cody did know how it felt to be alone on a birthday. Despite his 'cool popular guy who has tons of friends' shtick, he actually didn't really have alot of people outside of Total Drama who talked to him or knew him all that well, which pretty much made most of his birthdays extremely small things. Usually his parents and him were the only ones to celebrate. And sometimes, not even that happened.

"Sorry we forgot your birthday, son. Here's $500."

He couldn't count how many times he had heard that line in his life. If he did, he'd probably have enough money to go run for president or something.

It was because of this that Cody had long ago grown used to the isolation and disappointment he usually felt on his birthdays. But that was just him. This probably was the first time Gwen had ever been alone on her brithday before. He had seen the clip her mother and brother had sent to her back on Total Drama Island. He figured her birthdays never went unnoticed... Up until now, and that really made Cody feel bad.

Even if it wasn't Gwen, he'd feel bad. Nobody deserves to feel unwanted or unnoticed. Especially on their brithday of all days.

And this is why he got up out of his seat and started to walk away, with a look of determination setting in on his features.

Sierra of course tried to stop him, but he simply said he was going to head to the restroom and make a confessional, which thankfully stopped her... After he promised he would come back in about 5 minutes, which of course was a lie; It would be alot longer than 5 minutes before he got back.

He had somewhere to go.

* * *

As it turned out, the stereotypes about Texas being a big place were true - Cody had absolutely no idea where he was going. The jumbo jet had landed somewhere in a Houston, Texas airport with the lot rented out in Chris' name, and after he left the airport, he was met with the giant city of Houston facing at him. He had no idea where the place he was looking for could even be. It could be anywhere really. He'd have to scour the entire city before he found what he was looking for.

He almost considered heading back to the lot and getting back onboard the plane and trying to cheer Gwen up some other way.

Almost.

 _For Gwen._ He told himself. _I'm doing this for Gwen..._

He stepped out onto the curb outside of the airport, where he observed tons of cars and trucks of varying sizes all driving around. Looked like it was a busy day. Lots of traffic. And that only added to complicate matters further.

He started walking across the street when he saw something and stopped in his tracks.

Yes!

A taxi!

He couldn't believe his luck. This was just what he needed! Quickly, he ran over to the idling Taxi. In the front of the car sat the stereotypical Taxi driver; a slightly chubby Italian man wearing a gold chain, complete with a set of fuzzy dice hanging off the mirror at the front of the car. Cody quickly got into the back of the cabbie.

"Hello, sir." The man spoke through a thick Italian accent. "Where would you like to go?"

* * *

It took a while, but finally the Taxi came to a halt infront of a rather large building.

"Here we are, my little friend." The driver, who Cody had come to find out was named Mel, said.

Cody nodded at him and pulled out a crisp $50 bill.

"Thanks dude. Here you go," he handed the money to him, "keep the change."

Mel did a double take and then nodded graciously at Cody. "Thank you very very much sir. Good luck with your girl!" Cody smiled at him, thanked him again, and then got out of the cabbie and looked at the building infront of him.

"Jack's Art Supply Store" he read the sign aloud. "Looks like this is the place..."

Without further ado, he stepped inside the building, which actually looked to be alot smaller on the inside than it was on the outside. He was met with a rather old timey looking store; on the wall next to the entrance was a counter where a rather bored looking tattooed girl with spiked orange hair sat thumbing through a magazine. The ringing of the door made her look up from her magazine and she nodded at him, and he nodded back.

So far so good...

It looked like fate had placed Cody in the place after all, as before him was what had to be twenty something aisles full of art supplies. Aisle after aisle was something different; there was everything an artist could ever want in this place. There was even an entire aisle dedicated solely to ink wells. He didn't even know people still used those.

It then suddenly struck him that he really didn't exactly know what in particular he was looking for. He had only seen Gwen sketching in her sketchbook with some generic number 2 pencils, so he figured he could start with getting her some fancier art pencils, but he really didn't know all too much about pencils or art supplies... Dang it. He had to rush into the art store without figuring things out, didn't he?

He turned to the check out counter, and the lady behind it was starting to nod off, and Cody back to the aisles.

So pencils... He could start there... But what KIND of pencils? He didn't know the first thing about art supplies. There were aisles full of so many different types of pencils here, he could spend all day going through them.

Sighing, he walked up to the front counter.

"Uh, excuse me, miss?"

The young woman infront of him snored lightly, the magazine having fallen to the floor.

"Miss?"

The woman began to snore louder, and he started to snap his fingers infront of her face. "Miss?"

Finally, he began to shake her gently, and this seemed to do the trick as her eyes fluttered open.

"Huhwassat?" She grunted, and then looked around confusedly, as if trying to remember where she was and what she was doing. It took a few seconds, but it all finally came flooding back to her and she snapped her attention to Cody, who was starting at her rather strangely.

"Oh, sorry bud. What can I help you with?"

Cody smiled at her. "Yeah, I'm looking for some art supplies for... A good friend, and I don't know anything at all about art. Can you help me?"

She stared at him for a few seconds, before chuckling. "Sounds like someone is a really lucky lady to have a thoughtful boyfriend like you. Sure dude, I'll help you out."

Cody began to open his mouth to explain to her that he and Gwen weren't a couple, but he was cut off by the woman grabbing a few papers and handing them t o him. "Here you go man, these will tell you all you need to know."

Curiously, he looked down at the papers in his hands, and saw that they were diagrams of many commonly used pencils and art supplies and what they were used for, and he cheered inwardly. This was exactly what he needed!

"Wow, that's really cool! Thank you very much misses..."

"Julia." She smiled back at him.

"Thanks Julia. You just made not only my day, but hopefully my friend's day as well."

* * *

With the pamphlet provided by Julia, finding all the necessary pencils and supplies for Gwen was made a pretty trivial task, and he decided on getting her a large leather-bound black sketchbook, a black leather pouch for keeping pencils in, and a set of rather fancy art pencils, also black. He figured he'd go with black, as it was a pretty Gwennish color. Heh.

It was getting close to sundown as he entered the jumbo jet, the bag containing Gwen's supplies in hand. Things were surprisingly very tame around the jet, and he didn't see a single person on his way to the First Class. However, as he approached the doors leading into the First Class cabin, he began to hear a commotion.

"That's because you're a giant-" Cody winced.

Seems like Gwen was tearing Heather a new one in there. He decided it best to sit by the door and wait for things to calm down a little before he headed inside. That and he was kind of afraid of being the target of the goth's fury.

He didn't have to wait too long because after a few more minutes of shouting and arguing between the two rivals, the door to First Class finally flew open and a rather pissed off Gwen stomped out of the cabin, paying no attention to Cody. He wasn't even really sure if she noticed he was there. She probably just didn't care.

He watched her storm down the hall and round the corner, and against his better judgement, he slowly began to stalk after her.

* * *

"Stupid Heather... Stupid Chris. Stupid challenges. Stupid birthday..." He heard her mutter.

He had followed Gwen into the lower regions of the plane, and into an area that also happened to be one where he usually hid from Sierra during the few chances he got to escape from her grasp, which meant that he should have plenty of time to give her the stuff.

She was currently sitting on the floor up against a rather dirty looking wall, bitterly staring at the floor.

Without the thought of giving Gwen some time to cool off entering his mind, he stepped out of the shadows and approached her.

"Uh... Hey Gwen?"

She snapped her head up at him and scowled angrily, and he expected her to start shouting at him.

"What!? Can't you people just leave me alone for five minutes? What is it Cody? Are you here to start dropping some stupid pick up lines on me now? That's just great! As if this day couldn't get any better!"

Cody cringed at the tone in Gwen's voice, but somehow he found the will to step closer to her.

"No, Gwen... I just... Ugh. Here." He gently placed the bag infront of her. "I got you this."

She looked over at the bag and back up at him. "What's this? If this is some stupid attempt at getting me to go out with you-"

"No. It's not. I just... I heard it was your birthday, and I wanted to go get you a little something."

Upon hearing the word 'birthday', her annoyed looked instantly softened and she looked back down at the bag curiously. With no more words being exchanged between the two, she opened the brown plastic sack and gasped. "No way..." She muttered, as she pulled out the shiny black leather-bound sketchbook.

She looked down on it in her hands, staring at it as if she had struck gold, and then looked back up to Cody, who simply smiled sheepishly at her. "That's not all." he said, and she went back to the bag and puled out the pencils, followed by the pouch, and a receipt.

Placing the items gently down on the ground next to the notebook, she looked at the receipt and gasped again. "Oh my God..." She looked up at Cody was now grinning.

"Happy birthday, Gwen."

She looked back down at the receipt. "$125?"

Cody frowned. "Do you not like it?"

She quickly looked up at him. "No... No this is... Wow... I can't believe it. Nobody's ever spent that much money on me before for my birthday." Cody raised an eyebrow.

"Really? Honestly it seems pretty tame to me. Then again I do come from what many would consider a 'wealthy' family so..."

He slowly sat down next to her as she started going through the blank pages in the sketchbook, her pale fingers trailing over the cover. "This is really incredible. You... You did this for me?" She looked over at Cody who sheepishly grinned.

"Of course. I know how it feels to have a bad birthday. I didn't want you to know how it feels too."

She smiled gratefully at him. "Gee Cody... I honestly don't know what to say. This is probably one of the most coolest things anyone has ever done for me."

"Cody smiled genuinely at her. "Anything for you, Gwen."

"No seriously... This is seriously awesome... Woah... These pencils are freaking amazing!"

She drew a few strokes with one of the pencils and marveled at the sharpness of the lines they produced.

"That's a relief. I was afraid I'd gotten the wrong thing there for a minute. I must have took about 45 minutes just picking out the pencils alone." He chuckled, and she looked back over to him.

"Man... You really went all out did you?"

Before Cody could respond, he found himself in the warm embrace of Gwen, his crush's arms gently thrown around his neck, and he smelled the faint aroma of... Blueberries? Whatever it was, it was the sweetest thing he had ever smelt, probably because it was Gwen's smell. He gladly returned the hug, sighing happily.

After a few moments, the hug ended, and Gwen smiled at him once more. "You really didn't have to do this, Cody. Really. It wasn't a big deal."

Cody laughed. "Nah really, it's cool. The money is no big deal. And like I said - I know what it's like to have a bad birthday. My parents sometimes forget mine." She frowned at this.

"Your parents forget your birthday?"

He nodded.

"They're very busy people. They work really hard. I can't complain, they give me a nice place to live, but sometimes I just wish they would be around more..."

Silence set in between the two teens, as Gwen idly rubbed her hand along the cover of the leather sketchbook, seemingly lost in thought.

"Well, Cody, I have something for you too."

His confused look was met with Gwen's knowing smirk.

"Aw, you don't have to do anyt- MMF!"

The unthinkable had happened - In an instant, Gwen's lips met his. His eyes widened. He was too shocked to even return the kiss, which was over as soon as it started. After it had ended, Gwen was looking at him with an amused smile, the faintest trace of a blush on her pale cheeks.

"G-G-G-Gwen... You... You just..." Cody was absolutely awestruck - the thing he had dreamt forever about had just happened. He couldn't believe it.

"That's for looking out for me, Codemeister." She chuckled.

Cody, still at a loss for words, could only stare at her awestruck as she gathered up the supplies and went to the door.

"And Cody... If the offer's still up for that pop..."

That's it.

It's decided.

This is officially the greatest day ever.

* * *

 **So there we go. Wooooo. I just wrote this all out in one sitting. Started off great but I feel like it kinda got messy at the end. Let me know how you felt about this. This is just an idea that's been in the back of my mind for a while. This is my very first Fanfic, and my very first Total Drama fanfic at that. I'm just testing the waters right now. I might actually write some more GwOdy stuff if this one gets enough favor. I don't really know if alot of people are still interested in Total Drama fanfictions.  
**


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